In this episode of The Mobile Gamedev Playbook, we’re exploring all things metaverse. The idea of the metaverse has caught on across the tech industry over the last decade, with tech giants seemingly in a race to make it a reality.
CEO and co-founder of RP1, Sean Mann, joins host Jon Jordan to discuss how close the metaverse is to becoming a reality, what it might look like, how it’ll affect mobile gaming, and how RP1 has created a proprietary technology that provides a foundational layer upon which the metaverse can be built.
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Topics we will cover in this episode:
- What is the metaverse?
- What RP1 is doing that is different from other platform providers?
- How important are games as part of what will make the metaverse?
- In the end, is there one metaverse that everything happens in?
- What changes will mobile devices going into the metaverse mean for the mobile industry?
- Are AR and VR fundamental to what we’re thinking about when discussing metaverse, or do they provide nice additional features?
- What is coming up for RP1?
Introduction
Jon: Hello and welcome to the Mobile GameDev Playbook. Thanks for tuning in for another episode. This is the podcast that provides insights into what makes a great mobile game, what mobile game designers are thinking about at the moment and all the latest trends. I’m your host, Jon Jordan, and we have a big trend to discuss in today’s episode. I’m really looking forward to it. Our first expert is Sean Mann, who is the CEO and founder of RP1. How’s it going, Sean?
Sean: Not too bad and you, Jon?
Jon: Good, yes. I’m looking forward to this one. I’m going to have to contain my enthusiasm for the rest of it.
Jon: Good. A big topic today, metaverse, I guess it is the– Is it already the most hyped thing? I don’t know. It feels like it’s gotten to the stage where people are using it as a buzzword for things that I’m not sure they quite know about, and I’m definitely sure that I don’t know about. Sean, RP1 is really working on the tech that underpins this sort of stuff. Do you want to give us a little bit of an introduction first into what the company is doing?
Sean: Of course, and thank you for having me here. Similar to when the internet was built in the ’80s, I would say the biggest tech companies are trying to create this proverbial metaverse and there’s this race to build whatever this platform or what this is going to look like. It’s going to require, in my opinion, a complete rethink as far as how we enable hundreds of millions of people to interact in a persistent shared digital world. RP1, I think a decade in the making, has created one of a kind technology that will connect everyone on this planet with millions of applications in a persistent shardless environment. Hopefully, our platform will bring together all the AR/VR and gaming applications with true interoperability, making it easier for developers to create amazing experiences in a fraction of the time, hopefully, a lot cheaper, without worrying about dealing with complex network architecture.
“The biggest tech companies are trying to create this proverbial metaverse and there’s this race to build whatever this platform or what this is going to look like. It’s going to require, in my opinion, a complete rethink as far as how we enable hundreds of millions of people to interact in a persistent shared digital world”
Sean Mann on the creation of the metaverse
Jon: Cool. We’ve got a lot to unpick there, which we can do. I just wonder if, to start off, you mentioned shardless there and I guess probably those in industry have an idea about what that is, although we may not be again, correct. Do you want to just underpin what shardless actually means and what are the implications of that?
Sean: No, definitely. Imagine, if we’re all in a conference room and there’s only 20 people that can be in a conference room. Imagine the 21st person that arrives, they have to do a duplication of that conference room and it starts another experience, a duplicate of that experience. The whole premise of shardless is fundamental. Tim Sweeney spoke about this recently at Gamesbeat’s metaverse panel. He basically said, “We need to have tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people, in a shardless architecture where everyone can interact in different applications.” I think Dean mentioned it the best. Imagine if only 100 people could be in a space, and then as soon as the 101st person arrives, they have to duplicate that. It’s not going to create a future of what we think about this metaverse.
“Imagine, if we’re all in a conference room and there are only 20 people that can be in a conference room. Imagine the 21st person that arrives, they have to do a duplication of that conference room and it starts another experience, a duplicate of that experience. The whole premise of shardless is fundamental. Tim Sweeney spoke about this recently…He basically said, “We need to have tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people, in a shardless architecture where everyone can interact in different applications.”
Sean on what ‘shardless’ means
Jon: I guess the thing about mobile and the growth of mobile in the last ten years has been making games accessible. I guess if you’re thinking about a metaverse, the one key aspect of it, as you said, Sean, is its mass scale, and so mobile fits into that as providing the audience in a way that– PC, console are obviously very big, but they’re not quite global and mass audience in a way.
Sean, I’ve just penned down a few things you said there. Like the persistent shardless world of AR/VR, gaming social aspects. Is there a good definition of what a metaverse actually is, or is the point of a metaverse that it is somewhat shapeless? There are some terms that some people and some terms other people might use, but there isn’t a good term for a metaverse, and that’s what a metaverse is. A bit like jelly; you can’t pin it down.
What is the metaverse?
Sean: You know what, you bring up a good point. I think metaverse is turned into this adjective used in all the conversations around the metaverse. I guess because everyone wants to be in the now, it’s like, “I’m building a metaverse,” but in reality, they’re building an application that would reside, I think, in the metaverse. I think everyone can look up the Wikipedia definition, which I think is a good one. I think to help describe it, I look at it in three ways. When you wake up, today in the physical world, there’s one earth. It’s not like there are lots of other places that we go. I think there’s another thing. There’s only really one internet, right? There’s an internet that has all these websites. I look at the metaverse as a place that you go through a browser, and you just are interconnected to everything digital.
“The metaverse has turned into this adjective used in all the conversations around the metaverse. I guess because everyone wants to be in the now, it’s like, “I’m building a metaverse,” but in reality, they’re building an application that would reside, I think, in the metaverse.”
Sean on how people are developing for the metaverse
I think there are three buckets there. One is the idea of a digital twin of earth and the premise that you can do things that you can do in the physical world and duplicate that in the digital world. Like going shopping or playing games, or even smart cities and autonomous driving, all these different things need to be interconnected in the digital world.
The second aspect would be almost like a Ready Player One, building out these fictional worlds that people get to roam around and be a part of in a gaming experience and a massive social experience.
I think the third one is really just applications in general. This whole AR/VR aspect of, once you build this digital twin, you’re going to have all these different applications that you’re going to want to be a part of in the digital world. That could be gaming; it could be anything that can be unimaginable within this digital space. I think the metaverse encompasses all of that, in my opinion.
Jon: I guess in 10 years, whether we would still see Roblox and Fortnite as actually being the first gaming example of a metaverse or whether we look back and go, “Well, they weren’t metaverses, they were just big games.” It’s an interesting thing to think about.
In 10 years, whether we would still see Roblox and Fortnite as actually being the first gaming example of a metaverse or whether we look back and go, “Well, they weren’t metaverses, they were just big games.”
Jon Jordan on whether Roblox or Fortnite could be considered metaverses
What RP1 is doing that is different from other platform providers?
Jon: Let’s get a bit into the technicalities of what you do, Sean, at RP1. Over a number of years, you’ve been building a very specialised infrastructure, really, and one of the things it could do will be hosting metaverses. Without going into too much technical detail, but what are you doing that’s different?
Obviously, we have lots of data centres and lots of big companies providing internet infrastructure at the moment. For some people, if you want to go bigger, just buy some more servers off Amazon. What are you doing that’s not just buying more servers off Amazon?
Sean: That’s a great question. If you look at just real-time applications in general, including all gaming, VR and Fortnite and Roblox, you can only handle about 100 to 250 people per server. Also, the ability for shardless, we’re only technically with technology that we’re aware of, able to put probably upwards of tens of thousands of people in a single shared architecture. The idea and the premise of actually realising a true metaverse were considered decades away. Our tech founder was the former head architect of Full Tilt Poker. He thought about how you put over 100,000 people in a shardless architecture well over a decade ago.
“The idea and the premise of actually realising a true metaverse were considered decades away.”
Sean on how far away the metaverse is
After he perfected that system, he put over 100,000 people on one-tenth of a single server. To show you the comparison, imagine poker stars; they need upwards of 1,000 computers to do the same thing. AWS, obviously, their biggest customer is a real-time application like Fortnite. Imagine you can run Fortnite on a fraction of the computers. I think what it’s going to do is, it’s going to allow us to do two things. One is, we’re going to be able to do it on a tiny server footprint, which I think is really special. The second thing is, it’s going to allow us to build this massive shardless architecture where everyone can put their different applications. I think it’s more about the power of shardless applications and shardless users. You can go in and out of different applications that technology hadn’t been founded until we created our platform.
Jon: Again, not going into too much detail; what are you doing that’s different?
I always find it interesting when talking to tech people who are obviously very specialised in their field. If you’re not careful, this all boils down to, “We’ve just done this magical thing.” Well, if you’ve done a magical thing, how come no one else did the magic thing before you? What is the magical thing? Are you designing your own hardware? How are you doing it?
Sean: Great question. I didn’t know you wanted to go that deep, but I’m happy to. It’s funny. We found it, and it’s a neat finding. We found that the reason why you can only put 100 to 250 people in a single server had nothing to do with the game. People just accept that as pride if you grow, and I think you should be very proud.
Roblox uses 20,000 servers to run a handful of millions of concurrent users. I think what they’ve done is amazing, but if you could rethink how we do architecture, what if we can do that on 200 computers? What we’ve done is we figured out that what consumes the actual CPU is how do you disseminate that information between client and servers in real-time? As you begin to scale, it consumes a tremendous amount of the servers, and that’s where you’re limited. You think of Moore’s law, everyone’s waiting for hardware to catch up, but we’ve actually solved the software issue, making it ultra-efficient, allowing upwards of 250,000 people on a single server running real-time applications.
The idea of that is saving the number of servers that will be needed to run these applications, but the cost savings to a developer can be massive. We’ve spoken to a lot of VR companies, and they said, “If we scale, we’re going to go bankrupt based on the cost it takes to manage those games.” For us, it’s going to be at a fraction of the cost because we need so few servers to run those applications. I think that’s the tech behind what we discovered.
How important are games as part of what will make the metaverse?
Jon: Obviously, we’re coming at it from a games industry point of view. Sean, for you, you’re not coming at it from a game sector-specific point of view. Obviously, you can host anything. How gamey do you think metaverses should be? Not should be. How important are games as part of what will make a metaverse? I guess sticky games are very good. Are you making things sticky?
Sean: I think it’s interesting. You guys bring up some good subject matter as far as even defining games. I think if you look at the history of games, you bought a cartridge, right? It was more singular with you and whatever you downloaded. Or not even downloaded, but whatever you purchased. Now we have downloads, and now you have this interconnectivity of users where you have gaming boards that unite players against each other and whatnot. I think what we’ve seen is that I believe humans crave that social interaction. It’s funny, I have two children, and they played Fortnite and Roblox. It’s funny, I sometimes walk by, and they’re not even playing the game, but they’re socially interacting or having discussions within these environments because they could not connect in the real world.
I think what’s happening is that the creativity around these games is, “Well, how can we gamify these social interactions?” I think that’s what’s exciting about thinking about what’s possible for the future and not trying to take what we have today and try to force that into what’s going on. If you think about it, especially from a mobile game standpoint, our kids and every kid I’ve seen, in fact, so many kids that haven’t, they’re addicted to their cellphones. They have the likes and Snapchat, and they have all these streaks and whatnot. They have this compelling aspect of continuing to interact digitally with their friends. I think there’s going to be lots of new gaming experiences that will be around social environments.
“Especially from a mobile game standpoint, our kids and every kid I’ve seen, in fact, so many kids that haven’t, they’re addicted to their cell phones. They have the likes and Snapchat, and they have all these streaks and whatnot. They have this compelling aspect of continuing to interact digitally with their friends. I think there’s going to be lots of new gaming experiences that will be around social environments.”
Sean on the social aspect of mobile gaming
If you look at Rec Room and look at VRChat and all these different games, I think they’re unique because they’re pioneers. The tricky thing is the same aspect of shard versus shardless, right? You can only have that 10 to 20 user experience, and then the next person that joins, it’s like you can’t be a part of this. The same thing happens in Roblox and Fortnite. You’re very limited on the people you can interact and meet with. I think that’s the exciting part about having tech that breaks those chains and allows you to start building vast worlds, that you can have a choice of interaction. It’s not forcing interaction but having the ability to meet new people all around the world.
In the end, is there one metaverse that everything happens in?
Jon: Do you think, on that basis, that metaverse is a winner takes all in the same way– We’ve seen social media. I guess there are different social networks. They operate in slightly different ways, different geographies, differences in age ranges, but do we think they are the future? There are half a dozen or a hundred metaverses out there, and they’re bigger experiences than we currently have, but they’re not all-encompassing? Or does this boil down to one or two or three? Probably geographically, I suppose, that would work. In the end, is there one metaverse that everything then happens in? That seems to be a little bit what you’re– I’m reading between your lines, and that seems to be where you would be going.
Sean: Yes. I think for the benefit of the people and the users and developers, and not necessarily the large developers, because I think they’re all trying to build their walled garden version of a metaverse and forcing them through. If you think of Roblox, I think Roblox has done fantastically. They’ve created a community that is beyond special. I see them as one gaming experience in the metaverse, and I do not think everyone would want to be a Roblox user. They may not enjoy the l look; they may not enjoy– Obviously, they have a different demographic as far as kids. I know they’re probably going to invest a lot of money to bridge larger age groups, but their challenge will be– They’ve built that community and that experience. Still, I think the whole premise of the metaverse is, imagine if there was more than one internet. I think we’re trying to force the same look. Imagine everyone having to build on one website, and that’s just Roblox, or Fortnite, or this. You are stuck building within their world and their fixation as far as what it should be. I think the freedom of the metaverse is allowing anyone to build and experience at that level. I believe there are billions of people on Earth that may not like Roblox. Some people may not want to play just shoot ’em up games like Fortnite.
I think you need to enable technology for everyone to be interconnected. The reason why it’s essential to do that is, think of all the bad things with the internet. You have to go to a site; you have to create an identity. Every single different website has a separate login and a different experience. If we could restart, I think people would build tech that would stop that from happening, but it took decades for the Googles of the world to help, one login and all this. I think with the metaverse, as we are creating it, I think you want that complete interoperability where it’s effortless to go in and out of applications, so that if I’m playing Fortnite and someone playing Roblox, I should still be able to have a conversation saying, “Hey, you got to come over here and play this game.” No different than when I’m at a park in the real world, and you’re playing soccer, and I’m over at the drinking fountain. I want you to come over and hang out with me in this space. You should have that freedom to do so, and I think everyone’s trying to make their world, but I think nothing will stop creating this future internet because I believe the demand for it is high. Hopefully, we can help with the tech. We’re just bringing one massive component, but we will need an enormous amount of partners to get their aspects to help enable this future internet.
“I think with the metaverse, as we are creating it, I think you want that complete interoperability where it’s effortless to go in and out of applications, so that if I’m playing Fortnite and someone playing Roblox, I should still be able to have a conversation saying, “Hey, you got to come over here and play this game.” No different than when I’m at a park in the real world, and you’re playing soccer, and I’m over at the drinking fountain. I want you to come over and hang out with me in this space.”
Sean on the interconnectivity of the metaverse
What changes will mobile devices going into the metaverse mean for the mobile industry?
Jon: Definitely. I guess conceptually, it would be very significant if you– One word you mentioned there, the term walled garden, we’ve spoken a lot about on mobile. It’s been interesting; obviously, walled gardens have been very successful for many mobile developers. We ended up with two app stores effectively, which are now undergoing some interesting legal challenges.
I guess in the mobile games, in particular, we’re so focused on Apple and Google, and while there are– There has always been some disquiet about not so much that those walled gardens exist, but more about the margins that you give away to operate there. Mobile is so based around Apple and Google stores. Can you see it in the next ten years us breaking out from that? It seems to me that mobile devices going into a metaverse is not going to be so seamless if we have not just Google or Apple, but any centralised control over that sort of thing, because that’s– If we’re talking about people in Roblox talking to people in Fortnite. At the moment, Fortnite is not even available on app stores. Is this going to force the mobile industry to have radical change as well?
Sean: Yes, I think so. I think it’s the betterment of all the developers and the users out there. Obviously, Apple’s done a fantastic job building their company and creating the security and the things that the app store brings. I think the limitations, and if we start looking at the future, there are two massive things. One is, you’re forced to the app store because the user base is there. The second issue is that you have to download a game. You have to download a game to be able to play it on your mobile phone. I believe the metaverse is going to be very different. I think the metaverse where you’re going to stream the game in real-time based on where you’re at in the metaverse, so all these games are going to be in a coordinate system. You’re going to be able to go through a browser where you’re not forced through an app store.
I think the cool thing about the metaverse is you’re going to be able to use it in RP1, basically browser, and be able to interact with any of these applications all in real-time, without the worry of a download and that interoperability issue that you find within an app store or a singular monolithic iOS system.
Jon: There are a few streaming, mobile game services, but not really anything at scale yet.
Sean: I think what has been limiting is the internet connectivity. With 5G, I think you’re going to start seeing many more cases where you can stream. I think gaming developers will have to look at it differently because gaming engines are very monolithic, if you think about it. They’re designed to compile the game, and then you download it.
“I think what has been limiting is the internet connectivity. With 5G, I think you’re going to start seeing many more cases where you can stream. I think gaming developers will have to look at it differently because gaming engines are very monolithic, if you think about it. They’re designed to compile the game, and then you download it.”
Sean on the problems internet connectivity could have on the metaverse and gaming
We have to start rethinking how to deliver these games. You’re going to have to change the way you even architect them, the way you develop them. I think the premise of really streaming mobile games is that you can solve the whole network connectivity issue and just allow game developers to focus on the game itself. The cool thing is, you don’t need to see or download the entire game. You just need to stream what you see at any given moment. I’ll give you a great example.
If you look at Fortnite, instead of downloading a massive compiled game, you only need to know what you see at any given moment in that game. I don’t need to know every single avatar. I don’t need to know every single weapon. I just need to know the weapons that show up in front of me. I just need to know what’s– I don’t even need to know what’s on the side or behind me, except maybe for sound and whatnot. As you move around, that information can be fed to you in real-time.
I think it’s changing the way we think about architecting these games, which will enable what you’re talking about, this persistent real-time aspect of mobile games.
Jon: Yes, certainly can’t wait for that. I’ve been a big fan of inverted comments on Google Stadia. But if you’re using it, indeed, if you’re not connected directly to a router, it’s like, “Okay, I’m getting ten frames a second now.” I love the concept of all that stuff and how you can share screenshots and then go straight into games and all that. I think it will be interesting how 5G hopefully– I guess we’ve heard that before with new networking technologies, but yes, it would make things easier, I think.
Are AR and VR fundamental to what we’re thinking about when discussing metaverse, or do they provide nice additional features?
Jon: You’ve mentioned Sean in some of your previous answers about AR and VR. I guess those are also technologies that have been bubbling under. A few years ago, VR was the next big thing and went away a bit, coming back in a little bit. Obviously, AR, some interesting applications on mobile. I guess the argument about how important it is to Pokemon GO; we’ll leave for another time. Are those fundamental to what we’re thinking about when we talk about metaverse or provide nice additional features but are not core to the experience?
Sean: I think AR and VR are going to be huge. I think AR is going to be bigger first, just because I think that’s where– To be able to converge the real world with the digital world, I think, is going to open up new ways of interacting. I think the premise would be; you first have to think about building a coordinate system where all these locations can exist? I’ll give you a great example. Imagine if we want to go to the Louvre in Paris. If I have some friends that want to go there, we can put on a VR headset. Once you build a digital twin of the Louvre, kind of this coordinate system, you can create a VR experience at that location.
“I think AR is going to be bigger first, just because I think that’s where– To be able to converge the real world with the digital world…I’ll give you a great example. Imagine if we want to go to the Louvre in Paris. If I have some friends that want to go there, we can put on a VR headset. Once you build a digital twin of the Louvre, kind of like this coordinate system, you can create a VR experience at that location.”
Sean on AR
Let’s say you’re physically at that museum. You can build an AR application that can use the same coordinate system. Now, if I want to find an exhibit like the Mona Lisa, I can use my AR glasses, and it’ll draw a line to that exhibit in the physical world. I think it’s going to start enabling things, especially even NFTs. I think a lot of people, you’re buying all these NFTs, but where do you use them? I guess with the AR space, imagine walking around even, let’s say, a school environment. Your friends buy these NFTs, and they deck themselves out. Well, if I actually lifted my mobile phone or eventually will have AR glasses, I’ll be able to see their NFTs on their bodies. This convergence will happen, which I think and getting to your point will enable cool experiences or potentially gamified aspects of, how do you have this interaction occur? Again, you’re right. It’s not just about gaming because I think this will enable a whole lot of other experiences. I think it’s going to take one great application to understand these implications and get that adoption, and then it’s going to open up a whole greenfield as far as new ways of building games in this AR/VR space.
Jon: This would be interesting. Another term you mentioned, digital twins, is used a lot in this space where you’re building a digital version of an authentic life version of a city, building or something like that. It’s interesting that when you can connect those two things, which you could do with AI, then it, again, conceptually makes more sense than just having, here’s a physical thing, and then we recreated that in a digital world they’re not connected. To have both of them impacting each other, which AR gives you in the real world, really opens that up.
Sean: I was just going to say I can give you an example. Imagine like you have a house, a real house, and at some point, I believe there’ll be a digital twin of your own house where you’ll be able to display NFTs. When someone comes over to your house, you’ll be able to give them access to a private map. You’ll be able to see all the different things that you want to display. I think the whole idea of this digital twin just opens up the possibilities because if you think about it, we’re fortunate to be working in the gaming space. I’m sure a lot of us can travel, but a lot of human beings on the planet are locked to where they’re born or their social-economic aspect. The whole premise of this metaverse or this digital twin is it’s a great equaliser, in my opinion. Lots of people want to be able to travel to places that they couldn’t do before or experience things that they haven’t done and you don’t have to– The cost of an Oculus headset or a future headset that exists out there or, again, the cellphone, which has bridged these people together. I think the whole premise of opening up the different experiences that we can do, no matter where you’re at in the world, I think it’s what’s truly special about what the metaverse can bring to everyone, and you’re right. It’s not just about games, but I think the gamification in different areas that we haven’t thought about, man, it is endless, I guess. It’s going to open up– If you’re in the gaming space, I think it’s an exciting place to be in the next 10, 20 years.
Jon: I’ve promised not to talk about NFTs and blockchain in this episode because you’re going to go on forever otherwise. I will hold fast to that, hard as it is.
What is coming up for RP1?
Jon: Sean, how do you see the next– Where are we now? Six months to the end of this year, another year? Is this happening quite soon? Is this five years away? In terms of what you guys are doing, are you finished with the tech? Have you got a lot more to do? Is this all quite a moving deadline, or should we be expecting stuff, you think, quicker?
Sean: Great question. For a team of fewer than ten people, it’s quite a lot to put on our shoulders. We’re trying to attempt something that I think companies like Microsoft and Google, and Epic could handle just with the amount of money and people and time you need to build this massive internet, not just one application. We have been purely focused on finishing up the tech as far as the platform that enables this shardless environment.
We have a demo coming out in the next probably about two months, where we’re putting two million people on less than 33 servers, including audio in a virtual world. You’ll be able to access it through a client on a PC as well, just in the beginning. The whole premise would be to demonstrate more the technical capabilities of our system.
I think for us, it’s how fast we can get partners because it’s going to take a village to build this platform that we’re talking about. We’re not the graphic experts in the industry; we’re not the developers building games. It’s like when you first started the internet; you just enabled the platform where all these websites can sit. Hopefully, all these companies will converge to build on top of it because of what it can allow.
We are furiously looking for partners and ways to work with the big tech companies to share their visions. I know everyone’s trying to create something that our tech enables, but I think it depends on how fast we can converge the specialities from all these different companies. That’s going to take, hopefully, an altruistic thought process.
I think if we can build what’s good for the entire world. Maybe this is just me green thinking, but I’m hoping that everyone’s going to see that this has to happen and hopefully, we’ll bring their expertise and build on top of our platform or work with us to make that happen because we have a unique view on scalability that can enable on a very small server footprint. They have all the specialities in building out all these fantastic games and graphics and whatnot. Hopefully, when we can bring these things together, we can go a lot faster.
In two months, I think the demo will share that, and hopefully, within a year, we can start allowing people to build applications. I think it will grow from there as quickly as the environment wants to.
Jon: Well, I guess one of the critical aspects of metaverse I hope will be an open ecosystem. I think that’s what we hope it will enable, at least to some degree. That’s a good play into that.
Sean: No, I agree with you. I think our big vision, and if you wish on what could happen sooner than later, we would love to see all the different gaming engines attached to our platform. Again, we can share their design from a monolithic standpoint, and we can share what it’s going to take to alter their engine to work on the type of scale we’re talking about. It should be up to the developers to pick the different gaming engines based on the kind of games and the experience, and the cool assets they have. You don’t want to stop that competition because I think that will continue to create fantastic tool sets for the developers. The more agnostic we can be, I think, is super important, but it will take. These companies will say, “Hey, we’re okay being a part of this massive platform because there’s enough to make as far as money and users the same way that they’re doing it today. That’s our hope.
Jon: Good. Excellent. Well, it’s been a thoroughly fascinating discussion. I guess the metaverse is something we’ll be coming back to probably every few months or so, and taking its pulse and seeing how quickly it’s coming to life or if it’s maybe having a little sleep for a year or so. Thank you so much, Sean, for your expertise.
Sean: I appreciate it. Thank you for having me here, Jon. It’s been a good time.
Jon: Again, of course, thank you to you listeners and watchers now, as we’re now on YouTube. I hope you have enjoyed this episode. Every month, we’re looking at what’s going on in the world of mobile games. Sometimes particular aspects of mobile games are broader– Trends mobile games are pretty much everywhere, so we can do both. I hope you’re enjoying it. Please subscribe through either your podcast channel of choice or via YouTube. If you’re feeling pleased with our content, you should do that this week. Please, give us a nice review. That’s always helpful, isn’t it? Thanks so much for listening and watching, and come back next time to see what’s going on in the world of the Mobile GameDev Playbook.
